Clementine

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Logline

A heartbroken woman steals away to her estranged lover’s lake house in the Pacific Northwest where she becomes entangled with a teenage girl.

Synopsis

Unable to let go of her failing relationship with an older and more successful woman, KAREN, 29, stows away to her estranged lover’s lake house in a remote and beautiful forest in the Pacific Northwest. Here she meets LANA, a provocative young girl of indeterminate age, hell-bent on moving to California, and cultivating an identity that lives up to her expectations of the world outside of her shitty little town. Lana’s yarns captivate Karen as she tries to figure out who she is and who she’ll become outside of an all-consuming relationship. The narrative follows the development of Lana and Karen’s complex attachment. As Karen grapples with her past and expectations for the future, her relationship with Lana oscillates between that of friends, mother/daughter, sisters, lovers, beholder and beheld. The film aspires to simply but cinematically explore the cyclical nature of relationships as well as a rarely seen Lolita-like dynamic between two women. Equal parts psychological drama and sexual coming-of-age story, Clementine is a tense rumination on who to love and how to let go.

Meet the Filmmakers

Lara Jean Gallagher — Writer/Director

Lara Jean Gallagher is a writer and director originally from rural Pennsylvania where she was raised on a steady stream of television, polka, processed food, and wooded warfare with her three sisters. Her work focuses on small towns, dysfunctional families, and the kind of humor and relationships that are only possible when everything else is screwed up. Her shorts and music videos have screened at SXSW, Palm Springs Shortfest, Mill Valley, Portland International, DC Shorts, and online via Pitchfork, Spin, Rolling Stone, and NPR, among others. Lara earned her Directing MFA from Columbia University and was named one of IFP’s 2015 Emerging Storytellers. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon and is in post-production on her first feature film, Clementine, with the support of the Venice Biennale College-Cinema and IFP.

Aimee Lynn Barneburg — Producer

Aimee Lynn Barneburg is an independent producer and a Sundance Creative Producing Summit Fellow based in Portland, Oregon. Aimee Lynn got her start working in Los Angeles on large-scale film productions under veteran writer/director Garry Marshall. Since then, Aimee Lynn has UPM’d independent feature films and produced numerous projects ranging from short films and music videos to multimillion-dollar ad campaigns for leading global brands such as Nike, Adidas, Amazon and Google. She is a story-driven producer able to work within a variety of budgets and locations having shot all over the U.S., as well as South America, Europe and Asia. Most recently, Aimee Lynn was the Associate Producer on Andrew Haigh’s latest film, Lean on Pete, distributed by A24 and released in March 2018.

Davis Priestley — Producer

Davis Priestley founded Revery, a production company, in Portland Oregon in 2013 and serves as President and Executive Producer. A California native, he got his start in production at age 13. While in Los Angeles he worked as an Assistant Director, UPM, Line Producer, and Producer for many film and TV projects. Select credits include the independent feature The Auteur (Tribeca premiere), the interactive web film The Build, Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, Craig Lucas’ The Dying Gaul, HBO’s Entourage, Tommy Harden’s short film Passage, and the Emmy nominated Bravo series Project Runway. As a member of the development team at Mythgarden, Davis also helped bring Save Me to the screen (Sundance premiere). His background also includes extensive commercial production for clients such as Nike, Google, Cartoon Network, Adobe, and Audi, as well as several live-event projects with music talents like Madonna and Paul McCartney.